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MARSYAS (BODY/HISTORY, detail of diptych)
Wood panel, gesso, acrylic, colored pencil
80" x 48"

Transcription of the handwritten voice of MARSYAS (Body/History) on the panel below.

Subsequent to the completion of STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself, the artist created another studio section, STUDIO SECTION 2005-2007, The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Diptychs from The Winter Notebooks. On Pages 7 and 8 of The Winter Notebooks he reprised MARSYAS/MYSELF in retrospect visual and verbal consideration and wrote the following excerpt about it:

"Marsyas/Myself was completed in 2005 and entered into the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum in November of that same year. My three year involvement with this studio section was epiphanic and liberating, the separation nearly complete. However, the song of the artist, the skin of Marsyas, hangs heavy and will not be silenced. It lingers still, as Myself lingers still, and will not be silenced. As long as artists create artifacts and as long as viewers persist in creating Art from these artifacts, the myth of Marsyas is the truth of the artist; his life, his pain, his ecstasy, and his fate. By subjection of myself as a particular artist in equation with the corpus of Marsyas, an attempt was made to recast the drama of art into an anti-fascisttic and non-authoritarian process; a complete reassignment of roles wherein the viewer becomes the sole creator of Art and all else is cultural rhetoric. It was also an attempt by this artist at total honesty. As we know virtually nothing about Marsyas, it was my intention to reveal everything about Myself even to the extent of confessional boredom. All information has been made available to the viewer. Setting the plight of Marsyas in his challenge of Apollo within the context of a contemporary sculptor’s studio establishes the parallel of the cautionary myth with all artists who would gamble their lives on a rigged contest. There is no drama greater than the artist’s struggle with his own mortality. The transmutation of mortal desire into material artifact into immortal response is the distinguishing principal of humanity and it is the artist who personifies this principal in its sublime purity. No challenge is greater, no reality more intense. Marsyas is the artist’s myth and it is to this myth all artists conform…."


STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself is a multi-part installation work that requires a space approximately 40' x 40' for exhibition in its entirety. It consists of free-standing sculptures, and large panels hanging on the walls and a combination of these and evenly divided into two metaphorical dimensions: "Marsyas" and "Myself."

Collection:
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, California

BODY/HISTORY

"I am Marsyas, a Phrygian of ancient myth, sometime satyr—but that is my skin’s tale. Appearances are not examined here. They were stripped away. I am that which lies beneath the surface of recognition—the instigator of myths and rituals. I am cloaked and covered with skins and skeins of acceptability. Metaphors envelop me to protect from blinding reflection. I am truth, that which lies within and without. That which lies between is for the consideration of others. I am. I am Isness. No tropes intercede on my behalf. These are the inventions of artists and others—poets, even, who sing their songs of civilization. It is they who seek me out flaying and restructuring my acceptability. How amusing. They, too, are a part of Isness. Like a snake, I shed them when their season subsides. Even the gods do not prevail for they, too, are metaphors invented for the protection of men. Examine my myth. Obviously, it is an instruction against hubris: skin stretched tight over the blinding darkness. But it is my skin and only my skin that bears witness to my awful fate. I languish forgotten within the beads of history. This is the unbearable truth. To be and be no more. A momentary presence in the abiding now. To be not unique. A mere thread in the constant fabric where-in only time prevents oblivion. And when this skin is stripped away...this metaphor called Time...the face of nothingness, the body of truth is bared. Few can witness this flaying. Few can accept the void—the nothingness of it all—and create metaphors out of human compassion. To lie and make bearable the continuum. To lie and have the courage to lie and the will to lie. This is for the living. But I am dead, my skin taken, my body set aside. I have nothing more to lose. I will speak for myself. I will speak for Marsyas. I will speak for memory which is neither metaphor nor history. I will speak for myself...my life and my death. Compassion is no longer required of me or for me. I have sung my song and been flayed for it. My skin holds the audience. I speak for myself. I was an artist, a composer and performer of song. The flute was my instrument, a voice of surpassing beauty. Tooled by my hand, controlled

28 !04 | Television Novi Sad" src="http://bit.ly/xYVBqE" />

Nikon FE2 Kodak Ektar 100.

Bombed by NATO on 3rd, 26th and 29th May, 1999. I'd seen a photograph of this building, and received instructions of where is was - Mišeluk - and how to get there. Something along the lines of 'leave the bus station, keep walking, walk more, cross the Danube (don't fall in), go through the road-tunnel (don't get run over), take the slip-road on the right, follow it around the hill....' and there it was in the distance. The NATO strikes on Novi Sad from the end of March to early July were prolific. Electrical installations, military objects, water supplies, refineries. A suburban, residential areas.

After crossing a few more eerily quiet over and under-passes to get there I arrive at the gate house. I'd been instructed to locate the guard to seek permission to enter. Three dogs where in the kennel at the ramshackle gate house building. A few bits of timber and what looked like a television set fake balustrade made up the gate itself. The dogs were as curious as I was wary. I didn't anticipate Serbian dogs being any less aggressive than Moldovan ones, so I proceeded toward the gate house with caution. It looked empty and the dogs were sizing me up. No growls yet, but I did begin to notice that of the three dogs one was lame, the other blind and the third seemed somewhat dazed. Not wanting to cross the line at which their territory begins I shouted 'zdravo' (hello) to see if the guard was around. Nothing. More 'zdravo', more volume. After five minutes or so an old-ish man came out and on sight of my camera he happily let me in. He could see I was wary of the dogs, but he dismissed them and laughed.